Games involving bean bags or similar projectile pieces have been a popular and long standing fixture in the lawn games industry. One of the most common bean bag games is cornhole. Traditionally, cornhole involves two boards of identical size with one target opening on each board. The ease of play is typically the draw of such game, but lack of strategy and limitations involved with scoring make for a game that is repetitive and predictable.
With the increasing popularity of bean bag and projectile games, more and more alternatives to the traditional cornhole game have been introduced. Many of these alternatives have focused around football, one of the most popular American sports of our time. For years cornhole has been a fixture at football tailgating events, and more recently as the interest in cornhole has surged, many cornhole games have been introduced that incorporate the rules of football into the game itself.
One such game is a traditional cornhole board with multiple target openings and alternative game play styles as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,775,525 to Stayer et al. (“Stayer”), which is herein incorporated by reference. Stayer discloses a manual game which simulates American football with points earned or lost by hitting a target opening that represents outcomes or advancements as seen in a real football game. Such target openings include “−10 yd. sack”, “fumble”, “+35 yd. deep out” etc. However, because points are only earned by successfully passing a projectile through a target opening, there is no way to gain or score points if a projectile lands on the board itself and not through an opening. Further, there are no rules indicating starting positions for tossing the projectiles. Therefore, essentially all players, regardless of age or height, start as equals.
More recent games have attempted to include additional football rules and point scoring opportunities by adding target openings for a “hail mary,” “turnover,” or “−5 yd. foul.” Such a game is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/380,109 to Wolters (“Wolters”). Similar to Stayer, the game board in Wolters includes multiple target openings that correspond to a play losing or gaining points. Wolters discloses a bean bag tossing game incorporating kickoffs, punts, and gains and losses of yardage. However, like Stayer, there is not opportunity to gain or lose points unless a projectile successfully passes through an opening.
An alternative to a game incorporating target openings is a game described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,530 to Roop (“Roop”). Roop discloses a football game apparatus comprising a game board having thereon a visual representation of a football field including spaced lines representing 10 yard intervals. The game consists of a cork board and projectiles, such as darts, used in game play and, unlike Wolters and Stayer, there are no target openings. Instead, the game board in Roop is divided to represent scoring opportunities for players, with the field goal being a two and one-half inch by two inch section, not goal posts as typically used in real football or the football cornhole games disclosed by Stayer.
The games previously disclosed all incorporate the traditional rules of football in a lawn game type format. However, one of the major pieces of football is scoring. Scoring involves first through forth downs, gains and losses of yardages for catches, interceptions or penalties. Additionally there are scoring opportunities with touchdowns, field goals, touchback, and two-point conversions. Representing accurate movement of the football on the field according to the rules of football can present a challenge. Ability to easily track each “team” or “player” movement can present a challenge when incorporating the nuances of the game to a lawn game such as cornhole.
One such proposed solution is disclosed in a display for a simulated football game in U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,679 to Kircher (“Kircher”). Kircher discloses a display including an elongated main panel having indicators arranged to mark yards and clips that are alignable with selected yard indicators. The scoring mechanism disclosed in Kircher is to be used with a dart game similar to that of Roop, but with far less complexity and rules for game play. Therefore the scoring mechanism itself does not include or account for all possibilities of football, such as punting.